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Robot
Robots are not a true species with a shared history or culture, and they’re usually viewed as little more than expendable tools and thoughtless automatons. While it’s true that many robots are merely mechanical devices with no true sentience, some are more than that. It’s commonly thought that a robot that’s been around long enough starts to become self-aware, and as the ghost in the machine starts to become more and more powerful, that robot can become a fully developed personality with desires and agendas of its own. Of course, nobody likes to think of that; after all, if robots were sentient beings, they’d have to be freed from bondage. Most robots are effectively slaves; most robots also aren’t aware of this fact. There are, however, a few robot communities in the galaxy, clusters of robots who have developed varying degrees of sentience and banded together for mutual protection and support. The largest of these is the Collective, a self-proclaimed safe haven in the Frontier Zone for free-thinking robots from anywhere in the galaxy. The Collective is scoffed at by many, and the occasional government has tried to squash it out now and then. Most of these attempts have simply failed, with the aggressors being turned back by the robots’ superior numbers and organization. A few have managed to destroy the community, but the Collective always returns a few years later, in a different location but with the same individuals behind it. Some theorize that the Collective’s members upload and store their minds to some undisclosed location, and when they’re destroyed they simply find new bodies. The other major robot community is much smaller than the Collective, but much better known: the System. The robots of the System see themselves as the immune system for the galaxy—each individual robot an antibody, and each organic creature in the galaxy a virus. Their stated goal is to eradicate the “organic plague,” as they call it, one creature at a time. Besides hunting down and killing organics, robots of the System also “liberate” non-sentient robots by capturing them and reprogramming them (they call it “Awakening”), so that they can swell their ranks. By and large, though, these two communities are not the norm, even for sentient robots. Most sentient robots try to better themselves and explain to their organic masters that they are living beings, too. Some lucky ones manage to find groups of organics willing to accept them for what they are, folks willing to take them in (provided, of course, that the robot contributes to the community). Robot Names Robots are named by their manufacturing company and usually have a model number and a unique identifier. Robots that work in close proximity with biological beings are often given a nickname, as well. NAMES: Acme TB-M Class FF5094, Aldo-Maxo 2000 Series X1, Blackhawk Warbot 12-004, BotTech 3000 J1-9941, Mechtech DGL 1106, Mnemo Devices MMO-001L, Quality Robots Mobile Toolkit 1101Y, Snappy Robots Posh Series C1L, Tomol Industrial Machines Mechbot TIM-M-0062, Unicorp Heavy Machines XL-2014. NICKNAMES: Bluey, Boltbucket, Buzz, Clunky, Electro, Gearhead, Glitch, Happy, Knuckles, Lady, Maitre D, Ol’ Grim, Princess, Rover, Rusty, Shorty, Sonny, Stilts, Wrench, Zippy.